John Davison "Jay" Rockefeller IV (born June 18, 1937) is a retired American politician who served as a United States senator from West Virginia (1985–2015).

During his tenure, in the summer of 1968, after Robert Kennedy's assassination, his uncle Nelson Rockefeller, governor of New York, offered him to take up the Senator's seat.

He won the Democratic nomination for governor in 1972 but was defeated in the general election by the Republican incumbent, Arch A. Moore Jr.. Rockefeller then served as president of West Virginia Wesleyan College from 1973 to 1975.

He served as governor when manufacturing plants and coal mines were closing as the national recession of the early 1980s hit West Virginia particularly hard.

In April 1992, he was the Democratic Party's finance chairman and considered running for the presidency, but pulled out after consulting with friends and advisers.

In 1993, Rockefeller became the principal Senate supporter, with Ted Kennedy, behind Bill and Hillary Clinton's sweeping health care reform package, liaising closely with the First Lady, opening up his mansion next to Rock Creek Park for its first strategy meeting.

In October of that year, Rockefeller strongly expressed his concern for Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction program while addressing the U.S. Senate: There has been some debate over how "imminent" a threat Iraq poses.

[10]In November 2005 during a TV interview, Rockefeller stated, I took a trip ... in January 2002 to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, and I told each of the heads of state that it was my view that George Bush had already made up his mind to go to war against Iraq, that that was a predetermined set course that had taken shape shortly after 9/11.Rockefeller noted that the comment expresses his personal opinion, and that he was not privy to any confidential information that such action was planned.

In July 2011 Rockefeller was prominent in calling for U.S. agencies to investigate whether alleged phone hacking at News Corporation's newspapers in the United Kingdom had targeted American victims of the September 11 attacks.

[13][14] Rockefeller and Barbara Boxer subsequently wrote to the oversight committee of Dow Jones & Company (a subsidiary of News Corporation) to request that it conduct an investigation into the hiring of former CEO Les Hinton, and whether any current or former executives had knowledge of or played a role in phone hacking.

As a senator, he voted against the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement, which was heavily backed by David Rockefeller.

After the Niger uranium forgeries, in which the Bush administration gave forged documents to U.N. weapons inspectors to support allegations against Iraq, Rockefeller started an investigation into the falsification and exaggeration of evidence for the war.

[23] Rockefeller said, "The president and his advisers undertook a relentless public campaign in the aftermath of the attacks to use the war against Al Qaeda as a justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein.

"[24] In July 2007, Rockefeller announced that he planned to introduce legislation before the August congressional recess that would give the FCC the power to regulate TV violence.

This would mark the first time that the FCC would be given power to regulate such a vast spectrum of content, which would include almost everything except material produced strictly for direct internet use.

In 2007, Rockefeller began steering the Senate Intelligence Committee to grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies who were accused of unlawfully assisting the National Security Agency (NSA) in monitoring the communications of American citizens.

[25] This was an about-face of sorts for Senator Rockefeller, who had hand-written a letter to Vice President Dick Cheney in 2003 expressing his concerns about the legality of NSA's warrantless wire-tapping program.

[26] The senator has pledged not to rely on his vast fortune to fund his campaigns,[27] and the AT&T contributions represent about 2% of the money he raised during the previous year.

[26] Although publicly deploring torture, Rockefeller was one of two congressional Democrats briefed on waterboarding and other secret CIA practices in the early years of the Bush administration, as well as the existence of taped evidence of such interrogations (later destroyed).

[28] In December 2007, Rockefeller opposed a special counsel or commission inquiry into the destruction of the tapes, stating "it is the job of the intelligence committees to do that.

"[29] On September 28, 2006, Rockefeller voted with a largely Republican majority to suspend habeas corpus provisions for anyone deemed by the Executive Branch an "unlawful combatant," barring them from challenging their detentions in court.

[30] Rockefeller's vote authorized the President to establish permissible interrogation techniques and to "interpret the meaning and application" of international Geneva Convention standards, so long as the coercion fell short of "serious" bodily or psychological injury.

Citing the vulnerability of the Internet to cyber-attacks, the bill makes provisions to turn the Department of Commerce into a public-private clearing house to share potential threat information with the owners of large private networks.

[43] On September 29, 2009, Rockefeller offered an amendment to the Baucus Health Bill in the Senate Finance Committee to add a public option.

The amendment was rejected 15 to 8, with five Democrats (Baucus, Kent Conrad, Blanche Lincoln, Tom Carper, Bill Nelson) and all Republicans voting no.